The US Drug Enforcement Administration has issued a legal interpretation that acknowledges that cannabis seeds, tissue culture samples and other genetic material with less than 0.3% THC are legal hemp products not subject to federal prohibitions on marijuana. The DEA cannabis seeds decision was revealed its decision in a letter to Shane Pennington, an attorney focusing on cannabis law and litigation with the legal firm Vicente Sederberg LLP.<\/p>\n
The\u00a02018 Farm Bill legalized hemp<\/a>, which was defined as any part of the cannabis plant, including the seeds, with a delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (the most commonly known form of THC) concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis. In November 2021, Pennington sent a letter to the DEA seeking a determination whether cannabis seeds, clones and other genetic material with no more than 0.3% THC are subject to federal control. This April, he received a reply from the agency, which\u00a0he shared in his Substack column \u201cOn Drugs\u201d<\/a>on April 4.<\/p>\n In a January letter to Pennington, Terrence L. Boos, the chief of the Drug & Chemical Evaluation Section of the DEA, wrote that \u201cmarijuana seed that has a delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3%on a dry weight basis meets the definition of \u2018hemp\u2019 and thus is not controlled under the CSA. Conversely, marijuana seed having a delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis is controlled in schedule I under the CSA as marijuana.\u201d<\/p>\n The decision calls into question the veracity of the so-called source rule, a legal theory that holds the legality of cannabis material is dependent on the source from which it was derived\u2014federally illegal marijuana or legal hemp. Under the theory, any seeds, clones or other plant material sourced from cannabis with less than 0.3% THC (i.e., hemp) is legal to possess, process and sell.<\/p>\n \u201cIn my view, the letter is significant because we continue to see confusion over the source rule\u2014the argument that the legal status of a cannabis product hinges on whether it\u2019s \u2018sourced\u2019 from marijuana or hemp\u2014influencing legislative proposals even at the federal level,\u201d\u00a0Pennington told Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n In addition to seeds, the letter from the DEA also acknowledges that \u201cother material that\u2019s derived or extracted from the cannabis plant such as tissue culture and any other genetic material that has a delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol concentration of not more than 0.3% on a dry weight basis meets the definition of \u201chemp\u201d and thus isn\u2019t controlled under the CSA.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pennington says he is hopeful this will clear up a lot of confusion in this area of the law.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow that we know that the legality of the ultimate \u2018source\u2019 of both hemp and marijuana plants (their seeds) hinges on delta-9 THC concentration alone, reliance on the source rule is much harder to defend,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n In an email, Pennington noted that the DEA\u2019s decision doesn\u2019t change the law. Instead, the letter reveals how the DEA is interpreting existing law, namely the Controlled Substances Act. Pennington wrote that the \u201cDEA\u2019s view of the control status of various substances under the federal Controlled Substances Act is authoritative, and many people assumed DEA\u2019s authoritative view was more restrictive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNow that people know that DEA agrees that seeds, tissue cultures and any other genetic material with not more than .03% delta-9 THC by dry weight isn\u2019t subject to control under the Controlled Substances Act, it feels to them like the law has changed,\u201d he continued in an email to Cannabis Now. \u201cIn fact, though, this letter simply revealed what DEA very likely thought all along.\u201d<\/p>\n But the attorney also noted that the decision is limited in scope and doesn\u2019t mean that cannabis companies will be permitted to freely send their genetics across state lines. The DEA only found that cannabis seeds, clones and genetic material with less than 0.3% THC aren\u2019t subject to control under the Controlled Substances Act and \u201cthere are many other state and federal laws and regulations that may apply to any proposed interstate shipment of cultivars.\u201d<\/p>\n The DEA cannabis seeds decision is another example of the reach of the legalization of hemp in the 2018 Farm Bill. Last year, the DEA clarified to state regulators that delta-8 THC, an intoxicating cannabinoid that can be processed from hemp, is also not under the control of the Controlled Substances Act.<\/p>\n The post DEA Voices New Cannabis Seeds Decision\u00a0<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The US Drug Enforcement Administration has issued a legal interpretation that acknowledges that cannabis seeds, tissue culture samples and other genetic material with less than 0.3% THC are legal hemp products not subject to federal prohibitions on marijuana. The DEA cannabis seeds decision was revealed its decision in a letterContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6726,50,3878,6485,90,65,16140],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54531,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54530\/revisions\/54531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Source Rule Questioned<\/strong><\/h4>\n
DEA Decision Doesn\u2019t Change Law<\/strong><\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: DEA Voices New Cannabis Seeds Decision\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"